45
My shoulders quiver with excitement, the tension of a long-held arrow finally released but not yet flown, but my hands are steady as I bend Pissed Off Widow’s first hairpin in the light from the tunnel.
I’d bragged that I’d need one second to open both manacles. The manacle around my left ankle takes a whole three seconds. I blame fatigue and dehydration. The second fights me for five seconds, but it seems there’s a chunk of tooth wedged into the mechanism and the guards might be back any second. Freeing that foot will take too long.
Instead, I attack the cheap padlock attaching the manacles to the chain anchored in the wall. It gives in a handful of seconds. The handcuffs surrender in about the time it takes a Wall Street trader to trash a pension fund. I grab the free manacle in my
